


homemade

by scythias



Series: hoo au [2]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Birthday, Hot Chocolate, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Pining, Post-Tartarus (Percy Jackson), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Promises, Recovery, Sleeping Together, Tenderness, Tickle Fights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-07 19:24:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20822546
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scythias/pseuds/scythias
Summary: gods, leo really was his home, wasn’t he?





	homemade

**Author's Note:**

> i'm back? i'm back. what else is new? i had been planning this fic since i started hellbent, and i don't even know how it happened but i guess i just had a sudden rush of adrenaline when writing this? this is merely self-indulgent. maybe. all i know is that i missed writing about my boys and their dorky, tender love. (it's sorta bad though, lmao.)
> 
> notes if ya'll want:  
\- this is a sequel to hellbent. please read it if you want to know why these two are holding more depression than usual.  
\- leo unknowingly spent his birthday in tartarus. press f.  
\- nico has hydrophobia while leo has acrophobia. you've seen why.  
\- they were in love, rickald.

the nightmare would always be the same.

it would start in a pitch black room. the walls would be barren, an empty space that stretched for miles yet cramped in on nico’s tight form, forcing him to curl in on himself to escape the lack of space that only grew as the dream would go on. the room would be filled with water. it was not at all like the waters of the ponds or the lakes of camp, crystal clear and diamonds in the solace of the sunlight. it was not the endless ocean he had been traversing for years, blue deeper than the night that rested above its waters. no, this water was cold. unforgiving. ruthless. it was the color of charcoal, suffocating him slowly. it had reached his lungs, surrounded him like curling vipers until he could not even breathe a morsel of air. his vision would swim yet he was alive, and in that moment he never yearned for more than the grip of death to take him, to release him from this nightmare that drowned him in a pit of emptiness. cold, cold, cold. freezing. 

then nico would wake up.

it was like all the other times. he woke up with a cut off scream, a strangled grasp once he finally escapes the treacherous waters that had held him hostage since he closed his eyes. _ it happened again _ , he thinks with bated breath and gritted teeth, his breathing labored as his eyes dart around the room. he’s searching for a fight, searching for the cause of such atrocity to plague his dreams, knowing full well that the cause of this fear was from an entity he had already abandoned. he’s alone in his cabin, the walls black like the ones of his dreams — the only difference was the posters of _ nirvana _ and the calendars with red x’s marking towards the end of january. the makeshift constellations gleam on the ceiling, a light he was unused to despite his alertness racking to new heights. for a few seconds he does not know where he is, only knowing that he is shivering and crying and _ gods, he wants to go home _.

the nightmares are always the same. and they always come to him.

tartarus was in the past. he knew that; by how he was greeted by his friends rugged yet youthful faces every day or how he was allowed not to traverse a wasteland of desperate crimson but halls of vibrant bronze. yet he could not shake tartarus away. it was the itch on the back of his neck, the bug bites on his skin, the ripping of his flesh by claws of nymphs as he was torn to shreds in a frenzy of madness. each morning was a hard one, one he could barely wake up from. his eyes were opened, opened to every single detail of the world he lived in, and for once he curses this sight he has. he cannot stop seeing images of mortals dying left and right, monsters lurking under his bed and over his dresser, an eye staring at him and unleashing a torment none could compare to the pain of the world. nico had felt trauma before. tartarus was beyond that trauma. its effect had broken nico. he’s like glass shards on that damned beach, jagged and scattered and completely hopeless.

nico can’t stop his heart from racing. his pulse is quickened, his veins are stung by wasps, his lungs are trickling with electricity and flooding with fluids. he cannot breathe; he can’t stay here. the walls have become precipices of hard rock, blackened stone towering over him and making him feel as if he were but a gnat. nico hates being small, hates being weak, hates the nightmares that would never shut up. if the dreams were bad, the aftermath of them was much… much worse.

nico needs to leave. he needs to get away.

he kicks off the blankets trapping his body to the confines of his bed, quickly standing and nearly knocking himself off of his feet from the sudden maneuver. he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care about how his body is shaking so much that he can barely hold himself upright. he needs to get to him. he needs to make sure he’s alright.

he reaches the door and opens it, revealing the hallway of wooden walls and smooth floors that refused to creak despite the waves rolling against the hull of the argo. he shuts the door quietly, desperate not to make any loud noise for fear the others would hear him. he would not forgive himself if hazel ever exited her room after any one of his nightly routines, rubbing the sleep from her eyes before they set on a distressed nico with tear tracks on his cheeks and his heart in his hands. he knows he can be vulnerable with his friends. but right now, all he’s thinking about is _ him _.

he’s in front of the room now. the door is like all of the others — a barricade of redwood that is freshly polished, a nameplate signifying the owner of the room behind the closed structure. _ leo _. nico is struggling not to barge in, to not wake leo and make sure that the boy is safe and secure in the deck of the ship. something is stopping him. this was not a good idea. hell, this was such a selfish thing to do. nico checks the time on a clock on the wall, the bronze arrows pointing towards the hours and minutes of whatever time period nico was in. 2:19 a.m. leo would have been asleep right now.

now nico doesn’t know what to do. his hand is raised up, ready to knock on the door of the cabin, but his wrist is shivering. he can’t do this to leo. he can’t do this knowing that leo is probably dealing with something else entirely. leo had gone through tartarus as well, after all. nico had to feed him at times, had to coax him to bed and bring him from the fits of dissociation the boy would be stuck in. nico’s heart never stopped aching whenever so — the person he loves with all of his beating heart, reduced to a defeated mess despite being a survivor of something unimaginable. leo should not be expected to carry the weight of nico’s emotions. nico had promised himself to never use another person for his own gain again. he was revolted by the mere idea of using leo. he could not even imagine what he would feel if leo thought nico was using him only for the good of his emotional health. 

but then again… leo did say his door was always open. he was a light sleeper. he could barely fall asleep on his own. and leo had promised that he’d be there for nico, no matter what.

should he risk it?

nico releases a breath he had been holding. he needs to know that leo’s alive. that he exists and he is not a figment of his imagination. nico needs leo to be real.

he goes to open the door.

then, to his surprise, the handle of the knob turns without his touch. the door is swung open, and nico feels his heart skip a beat… no, several. he doesn’t think he can look at leo without feeling his blood rush with an unspeakable feeling, a warmth in the deafening cold of the world when his obsidian irises meet leo’s smoky quartz. the boy is holding the door with his shoulder that is devoid of its prosthetic, the other hand propping himself against the fine wood. his eye bags are more prominent in the darkness, and his dark curls are frizzier than usual as they sprout like wildfire from the top of his head. yet he never fails in creating an unspoken emotion within nico’s soul, a desire to hold him in his arms and never let go. 

they both stare at each other for hours. it’s like time has stopped, as if the end of the world was over and nico was left in the comfort of a home. gods, leo really was his home, wasn’t he? nico can’t find the right words, but he feels as if he knows why leo is awake at this hour. nightmares. had he been going to try to find nico too?

leo smiles. a small, genuine smile of honey warmth. “you gon’ come in?”

they sit next to each other on leo’s bed. leo brews two small cups of hot chocolate on the work table situated at the wall, filled to the brim with blueprints and pencils and crayola boxes. leo hands him a cup, and nico gives a small nod of thanks. leo causes a minor depression in the bedsheets as he sits down, tapping against the scorching white of his mug filled with marshmallows. one tap, two taps, bars and dots coming together into a language that nico easily translates with knowledge from long ago. the shirt that nico had given leo for his late birthday (from his own closet, as he was unable to visit any mortal store without scaring the pedestrians to death) fell below his hips just a bit, the _ tool _shirt fiddled with by leo’s own hands. 

nico had asked him why he was wearing a t-shirt in january. leo said he was hot.

“it was a nightmare, wasn’t it?” leo asks him, not bothering to beat around the bush. he knows that nico hates questions that are not blunt, having learned much even before trekking literal hell with him. nico wondered how much leo knew. sure, there were some things that nico wasn’t ready to tell him about, like the mansion of night or his visions from the final fight — but leo was observant. he knew when nico was scared, knew when nico had a trepid nightmare and needed someone to latch onto. without him, nico felt as if he were falling into that wretched pit once again. alone.

nico told him about his nightmare. this was not an unnatural occurrence for them. ever since tartarus, their nightmares had become all the more frequent, worse than before. they’d wake up in the middle of the night, paranoid and begging for help, usually awaking the other crew members and allowing them to calm them down when sweat plastered to their skin. leo had woken from nightmares just as frequent as nico, but he did not scream. he would be stuck in an upright position for ungodly hours until the morning, staring at the wall or shutting his eyes tight as if blocking demons from his mind. sometimes he would place his hands over his ears and rock his body back in forth. it was hard to tell when leo had a nightmare and needed comfort due to his permeating silence, so their friends decided to take turns checking up on all of the cabins. 

usually nico and leo would visit each other. it was fate after all, for them to search for one another even after everything. it’s nice, nico thinks, to be able to hold someone’s hand and not fear them slipping away. to speak of the fears he has and not be met with an ignorant quiet. he does what he can for leo, tapping small patterns into the boy’s skin to bring him from the statue he had been frozen into. he cares about leo. a lot.

when nico is done, leo hums. “so, it’s the same one?”

nico nods. “every time i close my eyes… i just see that room. i can’t breathe, and the water is cold and… i can’t even scream. it’s like i’m trapped. alone.”

nico hates being vulnerable. to pour your heart out to a stranger was the worst feeling in the world, the turmoil and anger you feel as a total nobody hears of the hatred and fear you hold in your heart. yet leo made it so easy, so comfortable to be vulnerable. leo is someone who nico knows. he’s someone who _ understands _. nico is vulnerable with leo because leo never pushes him to be, only willing to listen to whatever baggage of emotions nico is holding within his pulsing rib cage. nico can take off his armor in front of leo, and leo will never bring out the knife.

nico brings the hot chocolate to his lips and hisses when the scorching heat meets his tongue. it’s not as horrid as the waters of the phlegethon, but the influx of memories reach his head like a tsunami. he hears leo tsk. “slow down, _ chico _.” leo reaches up and places his hand on nico’s cheek. nico’s chest lightens at the touch. “okay, drink.”

nico does. the hot chocolate is mellowed and warm, not too sweet and not too sour. it was just right, and he nearly begins drowning again as he raises the cup higher. he downs the entire mug, humming at the homemade taste, the marshmallows melting in his mouth and the chocolate ever-present in his charred throat. leo huffs a laugh at nico’s eagerness to drink. nico exhales loudly after his last gul and places the empty mug on the bedside table. he turns back to leo; he notices that leo’s hand is still on his cheek, softly stroking over his cheekbones and playing with a stray curl of silver. his honey brown eyes seem lost, not in the way of a melancholy but of a yearning. nico gently reaches up and takes leo’s wrist in his hold, ceasing leo’s fingers caressing the side of his face. leo falters.

“sorry,” he says.

“don’t be,” nico tells him. 

“you’re not in that room anymore,” leo tells him. “you’re safe. no waters are gonna drown you. i’m not letting that happen anyway.”

nico knows. leo’s room is a mix of sunset and gold, the ceiling draped over by white stars and glowing lines. on the walls are blueprints, band posters, scribbled notes and faint scorch marks. on a rack atop leo’s bed is a piece of white bone, broken off at both ends and freshly policed save for a small chip in the center. drakon bone. there is a hearth to one wall, crackling faintly — the color of fresh roses. nico doesn’t understand why leo didn’t stay in his room often before the fall. it’s so much like him. the warmth, the tender, the softness of the blankets and the embers of the hearth are just indescribably _ leo _. nico is safe here. he’s safe in leo’s arms.

“what was your nightmare?” nico asks him.

“how’d you know?” leo questions.

“you don’t leave your room for anything else.”

“true, true.”

“what was it?”

“i’ve been having it a lot,” leo sighs, dropping his hand and choosing instead to interlace their fingers together. “i’m hanging onto a cliff. i’m screaming for help but there’s no one there. the rocks start to split apart, and i see someone standing over me and i reach up to grasp them but i realize that i only have one hand. and then… then i’m falling, and there’s nothing around me. i’m just falling.” leo exhales. “nothing like a fall to hell to give you acrophobia.”

“what did you feel?” nico inquires. leo ponders for a few seconds.

“scared,” he answers. “i was scared.”

“of falling?”

“no. not the fall.”

“the guy who let you fall.”

“mhm.”

the half-finished mug in leo’s lap swirls with brown, and leo places it on his own desk, releasing his hold on nico’s hand. then leo scoots a little closer, closing the distance between their crossed legs. it’s as if he’s afraid that at any single moment, any single second that they weren’t in contact, one of them would slip away into dust. nico’s not going to let that happen. nico takes leo’s hand again, this time with both hands, and brings it up to his mouth. he’s not kissing it — _ di immortales _, he swears he’s not — merely pressing his head against leo’s remaining hand in silent oath. it was, of course, leo’s scarred hand. a promise on the styx fulfilled but not forgotten, forever to be ingrained in nico’s consciousness. he’s not going to let leo fall again.

nico fixates his gaze on leo. “i’m not going to let you fall.”

“you can’t promise that, nico,” leo jokes, but he’s not smiling.

“i don’t care,” nico says. “i’m not going to let you fall.”

“then i won’t let you drown,” leo tells him. 

“good. i hate water.”

leo laughs. the bells of cathedrals. nico knows that he can’t make promises when all the promises made to him had been broken. percy, minos, everyone who nico had ever encountered in his lifetime. but leo had restored his hopes in promises. he will make a thousand just to keep him safe. and somehow, nico knows leo will do the same for him. leo had broken bones for him, taken in curses and allowed pain unlike any other to settle within him to keep nico safe. to think that nico would stop caring for leo was like an oath promised on false gods.

“seriously.” leo’s closer now. his face is in close proximity. nico runs a hand through his ringlets of smoke. “i’m not going to lose you again.”

“you’re not,” nico says. “we survived this long. i’m going to live. and i’m going to keep you safe.”

“promise?”

“promise.”

“okay.”

there’s silence in the air. it’s the nice type of silence. the silence where nico relishes in. for once, he does not need to fill the empty space. for once, he is unshackled.

“so what do we do now?” leo asks him. nico doesn’t know how to answer. their lips never felt so close yet so far away, a distance that could mean death but could make nico feel alive. he’s close, so close. it’s like that wretched elevator, screams echoing throughout iron walls and ghoulish facades, with leo’s head in his hands as nico kisses him. he remembered what it felt to hold leo that night, the world in his arms after he had lost just about everything. pretty. nico does not know what to do without leo. he doesn’t even know what to do around him. with leo, he’s just as lost as he is found.

“we could do nothing,” nico supplies.

“nothing?”

“yeah… or…”

an idea strikes. nico feels a smile — his first of the night — grow on his face. “tickle fight.”

leo blinks. “a wh—”

he doesn’t finish before nico digs his hand into his neck, easily finding where he is most sensitive and causing leo to cry out. leo bursts into laughter, grabbing nico’s wrist to prevent him from his assault but nico is persistent, grinning as leo squirms and giggles. “fucking jackass!” leo cackles, and he does the same to nico, shoving his fingers between his neck and collar bone. nico howls in laughter, burrowing both his hands beneath leo’s armpits to attack him further. this is a battle he is going to win. though with the way leo is laughing, he feels already victorious.

they play for gods know how long, rolling across the bed and hitting each other playfully, kicking each other with socked feet and soft elbows. nico feels like a kid in that moment, a stupid and goofy smile on his facade as leo tickles him, as he tries to tickle back though leo escapes every single movement. he’s ten again, with bianca in westover hall, attacking each other with feather pillows, childish giggles though in hushed voices. nico’s cheeks hurt from smiling too much — this was one of the few times he smiled this much — but he loves the way that leo’s voice is wind chimes, a chorus of angels as he attempts to retaliate his ministrations. nico’s a child again, and he loves it so much.

by three o’clock, they are scattered across the bed, laughing their asses off as if they were dumb teenagers. not warriors who had born the scars of demons from the pits of the earth or pawns in a game they were destined to play. they were children, young and dumb and out of money and _ in love _ . nico and leo calm down from their high yet the shit-eating grins on their faces never leave. their hands are intertwined, the black and amber scars scathing against each other. they don’t hurt. nico is breathing heavily, not from fear but from a serenity. he feels his eyes start to close but he refuses to sleep. he can’t sleep when he’s in this hearth of a home. leo moves his head to nico’s chest, scrawny with shoulders that have held the burden of deities. his breathing is soft. alive. his hair is a mess from rolling over the bedsheets, his teeth are shining in the firelight, his shirt is bunched up around him and he’s so _ beautiful _ that nico thinks he forgets to function for a split moment.

leo brings up nico’s hand to his heart. it’s pulsing. beating.

“you’re tired,” nico states. leo’s eyes are drooping dangerously, hooded lids falling over his dark brown irises. he can’t help but reach up and trace over the dark lashes, his face warm and plush against nico’s calloused digits. leo leans into the touch. cute.

“i’m fine,” leo mutters. then he yawns, and nico has the audacity to laugh.

“sure you are,” nico indulges. “come on.”

he brings the blankets up to leo’s neck, gently positioning leo’s head in the center of a white pillow. they are traced with golden stars and ember sunsets, and they hold leo’s dark curls just nicely. nico can’t bring it in himself to leave him when leo is so warm to be around, hestia’s hearth though the goddess was not present. all he can do is sit next to leo’s lying form, caressing his face to coax him into sleep. with each tender stroke leo falls deeper into hypnos’ realm, eyes fluttering closed before the boy forces them open again. nico huffs in determination when such happens, causing leo to laugh at him. they were too stubborn for their own good.

“you’ll be fine?” nico asks him, genuinely. he needs to know that leo is okay. that he will be safe. that nico will wake up next morning to leo at the mess hall, drinking oj and ranting about plans.

“i will,” leo mumbles. his eyes are refusing to open now.

“okay.”

slowly, nico leaves the confines of leo’s bed. leo reaches up and grabs his wrist.

“wait.”

“what is it?”

“stay.”

nico’s face flushes. “what?”

“i want you to stay.”

“… are you sure?”

leo nods. nico can’t say no even if he wanted to.

“okay.” he climbs back into bed, and immediately leo scoots closer, clutching onto nico like a lifeline. the blankets are pleasant and loving, wrapping around nico like the puffiness of clouds. leo is in his arms, face tucked beneath his neck. nico’s cold body had begun to thaw out. it was in the past that he had been shivering in the cold and dark — the only thing he knew now was the love of another. months ago, they had fallen. they had come out bruised and beaten, scathed in their fragile makeup. yet they had also come out stronger by each other’s hold, trusting one another with their lives and the hearts that entailed. nico doesn’t remember anything before he had held leo, the universe within reach and never out of sight. he loves leo. he loves him so much. 

it’s natural to listen to the boy breathe, to close his eyes and feel the rise and fall of leo’s clothed chest. his hair is soft and perfect to nestle his face into, the cinnamon scent of corkscrews clearing nico’s damaged nose. he forgets the ache of tartarus and relishes in the ache of now, cherishing how leo fit right in his hands and the lack of space between them. he can almost…

he can’t. he can’t do that. the end of the world was approaching. they have no time. they have no placement for it. nico was scared. he loves leo. but he is so, so scared.

“hey,” leo mutters, eyes fluttering open prettily to hold a frown at nico’s inner thoughts. “you good?”

nico releases a shuddering exhale. “i’ll be fine.”

leo does not seem to agree with such a statement, but he doesn’t push him. rather he interlaces his hand in nico’s raven curls, mesmerized by how they fall between his knuckles. “hey, isn’t today the 28th?”

“yeah. why?”

leo huffs a small laugh. “it’s your birthday, isn’t it?”

it… it takes a few moments for nico to process the information. the calendar. the end of january. yes, it was nico’s birthday today; he was seventeen years old. five years since he had fought in the titan war, seven since he had lost bianca to hephaestus’ almighty amalgamation. nico was seventeen. he would have been a junior in high school. he would have been in high school. he would have been a normal kid with normal schooling. but he was seventeen, traversing the ocean blue to stop the earth from destroying everything that inhabits it. seventeen. he can hardly believe it. he never even celebrated his birthday since bianca’s death. jesus, he was old as shit.

“huh,” nico mumbles. “it is.”

leo snorts. “happy birthday, death breath.”

“yeah,” nico breathes. “huh.”

leo’s eyes soften at his astonishment. “i have a present for you. you can open it later.”

nico smiles. “that’d be nice.”

“yeah.” leo smiles back. “nice.”

they nestle closer to each other. “your hands are cold,” leo says off-handedly, and makes no move to scoot away. he promptly falls asleep on nico’s chest, breaths finally becoming leisured enough to lull nico into his own unconscious world. the sleep he has that night is dreamless, a rare occurrence that seems common whenever he sleeps next to leo. thank gods he had taken the risk to enter this home. thank gods he felt the courage to wake up and go to leo. in this comfort of blankets and pillows and a candle in his hands, he pictures this as a perfect moment. leo might have a birthday present, but wasn’t this already enough?

nico taps on his sleeping form, just as the welcoming darkness takes a hold of him.

_ .. / .-.. --- ...- . / -.-- --- ..- _


End file.
